Career Tips From Don Draper

The hit show Mad Men has added a new role model for men everywhere. AskMen's annual list of influential men includes movie stars, rock legends, 00-agents, and now advertising agents. The cast and crew of Mad Men do a great job of transporting viewers to another time and place. And, as much as we love Roger Sterling, nobody embodies the manly qualities we're talking about like Don Draper. Jon Hamm's Golden Globe winning character recently finished first in our Top 49 Most Influential Men poll. So, what influence has Don had on your working style? Read on for some career tips we've gleaned from obsessing over episodes (we prefer to call it studying).

Play your position

No matter your title at work, play the position appropriately. This really boils down to knowing everything your job entails. Don always knows what deliverables his superiors, team and clients expect. As a leader, you should not consider any work to be “beneath you,” but you also need to be sure your team is doing their work, not just leaving it for you to pick up. Consider a manager whose team consistently leaves the bathroom a mess. If you were in this manager's shoes, would you talk to each member of your team, having a talk about bathroom standards that was boring and non-confrontational, but still left no doubt as to what you expected of your staff in terms of how to maintain the bathroom? If you're like most managers the answer is no; you'd simply start cleaning the bathroom yourself so you didn't have to have that uncomfortable talk with your staff. Keep the image in your mind — some managers would rather clean up the toilets than tell an employee what to do.

Make it about the work

Do you come to work to make friends or to work? Don Draper certainly cares more about his work than he cares about the people on his team. Certainly, there is no need to be aggressive or to be a jerk, but this career tip from Don Draper highlights that friendship isn't the main reason to show up every morning. Go to work to get things accomplished and be effective. If you can be friends with those you work with (and it's almost always the case) that's even better, but never forget that it's also just a bonus. You might like the people you work with, but you don't show up at 9 a.m. every day because you like them.

Keep your mouth shut

One of the fundamental rules of knowledge as power is to never give away information when it does not benefit you. If you are in a position that affords you exclusive knowledge, the more people you give this knowledge to, the more diluted your power becomes. The rule here is simple: Keep your mouth shut — and do it as much as you can (and the less you say the better). Your personal life, who in the office is hooking up, your boss' golf game — all of that is valuable information in one way or another. Don't hand it out unless you have to. Don embodies all of these qualities. In fact, one of the very few times Don blows his cool is when he overhears the team dragging Freddy Rumsen's name through the mud.